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Represent Running’s 2015 Let’s Go 510k race report

Represent Running’s 2015 Let’s Go 510k race report

I tend to repeat myself frequently here — hence the dearth of posts — and one of my more popular refrains of late has echoed the sheer necessity of more or less rollin’ with running postpartum. I can have the best laid plans — and believe me, I do — but similar to running while pregnant, running postpartum can look and feel very different day-to-day. You can only control so much, making rollin’ with things pretty imperative.

That said, I planned for Represent Running‘s Let’s Go 510k, a 10k in Berkeley that started and ended at the Golden Gate Fields horse racing track, to be my first race postpartum, but I was pretty sure it’d be a “race” in name only. I’ve been happy with my PP running and how things are beginning to click, but I’m focusing on volume — not speed — for the remainder of 2015, so I knew that the 510k would be more about perceived effort than anything else.

With all of this in mind, then, you can imagine my surprise and somewhat amusing headgames when I toed the line (kinda — more on that in a minute) on Sunday, after kinda unexpectedly having surgery 48 hours earlier.

I envisioned a lot of things for my first race postpartum, but, uh, having surgery wasn’t in that mix.

Nor was arriving to the starting area kinda on time, but needing to nurse Spike, and therefore starting a good 15 minutes after the gun went off — hello, my  name is Erin, and I was the DFL starting runner at the 510k — in my mental imagery games … but hey, these things are all about the experience, right!? The only thing I could do was roll with it, so that’s what I did.

More than anything, I was stoked to make the haul up to the East Bay (and drag the entire family along, I love you husband!) because Big Sis would be running again for the first time since the spring, the last time the two of us did a race together (in Morgan Hill). Had she not been running, I most likely wouldn’t have run and instead, would have taken another rest day post-op. Knowing how excited she was for the race, though, it was a no-brainer to make the haul north and hope for the best.

A little sidenote: Represent Running puts on a good show with their races. The 510k is the last in their “Run the Bay” series of races, a series that gives both local and remote runners the opportunity to run races in each of the major area codes of the Bay Area — the 408 (an 8k in SJ), the 415 (a 5k and 15k in SF), and the 510 (a 5k and 10k in Berkeley). Each race gives runners a medal that showcases attractions unique to that area (the SJ Sharks, the GGB, the GS Warriors), and if you run the entire race series in one calendar year, you earn an additional “I Run the Bay” medal. Admittedly, I’m not into hardware, but I dig this concept.  Plus, I enjoy the staff at RR and have loved working with them over the past year as a social media ambassador, so surgery be damned, I wanted for my girl and me to run!

So — East Bay, Sunday, the last race of the calendar year to complete the “I Run the Bay” challenge. The family and I arrived to Golden Gate Fields at about 6:52 for a 7am start (oops), I nursed Spike in the car and chatted with the awesome Bernadette, another RR social media ambassador who parked next to us and who’d go on to walk the entire 5k course without her cane, nearly a year to the day after surviving a massive stroke, and before I knew it, whoops, it was about 7:15, and I needed to haul relative ass to run. Yikes. I haven’t had the pleasure of being the DFL runner at the start in a very long time, and I was *so* late to arrive to the start of the 510k that I couldn’t even run over the starting mats because RR had already switched things over to “finish” times. I couldn’t help but laugh about the comedy of errors on my part, so I just went with it and more or less began the race parallel to the starting line, yelling an “I’m sorry, JT!!” to the race founder/organizer/director as I began my 6.2. I felt like an ass and surely looked like a doofus.

The 5k and 10k runners and walkers started together, so within the first mile or so, I began to quickly catch-up to the rest of humanity and started seeing many 5k runners working their way home. Probably not even 2 minutes into my race, I saw my husband and the kiddos standing outside the car, yelling GO MOMMY!, necessitating a mid-run smooch for everyone, followed shortly thereafter by a quick photo of the awesomely-inspiring Bernadette and her husband walking.

bernadette

As is standard fare with me and races, I rarely looked at my watch and just relied on perceived effort. I knew things would be a little screwy because my adrenaline was SURGING due to the aforementioned comedy of errors, and I just hoped that I wouldn’t crash and burn somewhere. If I did, well, at least I had my phone with me. And yeah, I was hoping that the sutures and such from Friday’s double laparoscopic surgery held up (which, for fun: an IUD removal from my right pelvis … it had apparently perforated my uterus (!) four weeks earlier and migrated … and might have ended up causing a healthy dose of appendicitis, necessitating my appendix to also be removed, much to my surprise when I woke up and they told me it was gone (!!)). Again: I figured if I needed to stop, I would; if I needed to DNF, I would; and really, this was my first race postpartum, one that I was prepared for (the distance) and not prepared for (truly racing at 10k speed) simultaneously. My expectations were low for my performance but hella high for my enjoyment.

For some reason, I felt compelled to call (!) my husband at the halfway mark to tell him that I was halfway done and totally fine — he reminded me as I was exiting the car to race that running this soon post-op was dumb — and that I’d be finishing soon. Like I said, I’ve been the DFL starting runner before, but I’ve never a) taken a pic mid-race; b) smooched my family mid-race; or c) actually made a phone call mid-race (while running, no less), so suffice it to say that Sunday was just a little bit of “everything new on race day.” Why not.

As I continued along in my little trek, enjoying the run, the nice scenery, the views of the bay, and catching up to people, I very surprisingly to me felt fantastic. I didn’t experience any of the post-op tenderness and swelling that I had had in the preceding 48 hours — making me hope that it wouldn’t show up later — and so along I went, looking for people I knew and cheering on those who were already on the ‘back’ portion of the race. I was having a blast.

The 510k constantly kept me guessing  — for a while, we were on pavement, then crushed limestone, then dirt, then actual limestone (like the little stones that were in my grandparents’ driveway, back in the day), and for a hot minute, we even had some sand — so while I didn’t think it was a fast course, it sure was fun. Because of the timing mat issue, my official time is significantly slower than my watch time (about a 47:47, probably closer to a 47:45, since I didn’t stop it right away at the finish line), but hey — for my first race PP, and for the ridiculous comedy of errors I had that morning, whatevs. I consistently ran sub-8s for the first time since having Spike 11 weeks prior.  I got to see many people I knew mid-race and after. And — most importantly — I had so much fun.

I’ve taken a good 1,500 words by this point to talk about a race that wasn’t really about me as much as it was about my oldest daughter. Big Sis is quickly approaching 4.5 and in the past few weeks, has especially taken a liking to running with me at night, after C has gone to bed and after I’ve put the baby down. More often than not, Big Sis rides in the stroller for the run, but she’ll often run in the beginning and again at the very end of the run with me, jumping out of the stroller, proudly wearing a reflective safety vest (while sometimes also running with a flashlight or my headlamp). Surely you can imagine how proud it makes me to see her so happy doing something she loves so much — something that I’ve never once pushed her to do.

As we were standing in the starting area of the kids’ race, I recognized none other than Bay Area local, Olympian, and 2015 Western States winner (in her debut 100-miler) Magdalena Lewy Boulet with her son. If there’s a badass runner out there I’d ever want to emulate — who’s also a woman and who’s also a mother — it’s Magda. And if there’s ever an example of a tough, strong, humble, and accomplished human I’d ever want my daughters to meet, in the hopes that they, too, would emulate her — it’s Magda.

hopefully becoming fast and strong by osmosis
hopefully becoming fast and strong by osmosis. Cheesin’ so hard it looks like my carotid is about to pop!

I was beyond thrilled that she was so gracious to chat, take pics, and even do the goofy warm-up routines with the kids. She’s so *not* a running mortal, but for those 10 minutes of both of the big kids’ and little kids’ races, she was just another parent runner there to cheer on her kid and the other littles. It was just fuckin’ awesome and made me love this community even harder than I already do.

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Big Sis chatted up a storm with Magda (I die of pride) while her son danced on in the background to the DJ’s smooth jams, and once the race began, Big Sis even ran alongside her, at some points step for step. Again: I die of pride. Big Sis has absolutely no idea how awesome it was that she got to meet, talk, and run with such an accomplished runner, so I plan to remind her of this experience when she’s older and can appreciate it a tad more 🙂

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And once Big Sis finished the race, she quickly said “let’s do it again!,” so back out we went to do the 400m big kids’ run, though after sprinting the little kids’ 200m run, she needed a few run/walk intervals. I get it, Big Sis. Pacing is tough. I’ve never finished a race distance only to go back out and run double the distance again, so hey, you’ve got one up on your mother already.

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After a fun morning of running, with no post-op complications arising or 4 year-old or 11 week-old meltdowns surfacing, the fam and I met up with Mere for brunch before heading back south. It was delicious and necessary and just a freakin’ lovely way to bookend the fun morning experiences.

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It definitely was a whirlwind of a morning that began before 5 and didn’t end until nearly 2, but for my first race postpartum, I couldn’t have asked for a richer experience. Running and racing has been teaching me time and again that the time matters only so much; it’s the times that make it all worthwhile. Deep, I know, but hey — I’m sure I’m not the only runner who can use this reminder periodically. Getting my first racing fix PP and seeing my oldest race again (while also meeting one of the best runners in the business) just made my weekend, and I can’t wait to do it all again.

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Thanks to Represent Running for the opportunity to Run the Bay this year and promote your races like hell. You guys do good work. Everyone should run a RR race (or three). They’re good times and wonderful people.

“getting back your body after baby” is bullshit

“getting back your body after baby” is bullshit

Ah, nearly two months postpartum now. Running is getting more comfortable, though the somewhat unpredictable schedule leaves me guessing when each run will happen each day (if it does at all), which is a-okay; my focus for the rest of the year is to slowly build volume, so I’m where I should be/want to be. It has been just a joy to see little Spike and A “interact” with each other over the past almost-two months, and particularly for Spike, it has been cool to see her awaken just a little more each day and get just a little more intrigued with her surroundings and her big sister, the latter whom just can’t get enough of her.

pay no mind to the ladder in the background
pay no mind to the ladder in the background; we seem to have a never-ending list of home to-do items that necessitate a ladder being in our living space at all times

 

So: two months. Eight weeks. As a mother now to not one but two girls, I feel like it’s in my best interest — and theirs — for me to radiate the image and notion of body positivity, even (especially) if it means getting comfortable with myself and my own body, which — no surprise — can be a tricky thing postpartum. After I had A, I became acutely aware that she’d eventually mirror the way I talked about myself and the way I carried myself. Consequently, I’ve been intentional over the past 4+ years of the language I use when talking about my looks, my body, and anything physically- or aesthetically-centered when she’s around me — which is basically all the time. When I hear about tweens and younger-aged kids going on diets and expressing self-loathing because they hear the adults in their lives (my guess would be their mothers) do the same, I seriously think a part of me dies inside. “I’m so fat” or “I’m so ugly” or “I don’t like my _____” and the like shouldn’t have to cross any child’s lips ever, in my opinion.

So here I am, nearly two months postpartum, and all these notions of body positivity and “female empowerment,” if you will, are coursing through my head more than ever before. As I’m nursing Spike at WTF o’clock each morning, I often scroll through IG and come upon images from the 4th Trimester Bodies Project or from the hashtag #takebackpostpartum, like the one below, and it really gets my wheels turning:

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The wonderful Jamie Hartman, Daphne (2.5) and Emrys (7 months). Jamie was working as an apprentice with a midwife for several years before she became pregnant. She’s hesitant to say that prepared her for her own experience but it certainly didn’t hurt and the midwife she trained with went on to catch both of her babies. Daphne was born at home without complication and Emrys was born in a freestanding birth center. Breastfeeding has gone well with each of her babes and she’s enjoying tandem feeding them today. She’s had to work through some nursing aversions but after feeding through her pregnancy and setting up boundaries with her daughter, things have been great. Her struggles with and survival of Postpartum Anxiety have been the part of her mothering journey that Jamie has found the most transformative. Within 48 hours of the birth of her daughter, Jamie began to have panic attacks surrounding her daughters health, feeding and well being. She was able to find an amazing therapist and eventually start medication which was the perfect answer for her. Being in the natural minded community however, Jamie has often found herself in a bit of an anti-med loophole. Jamie continued medication throughout her pregnancy with Emrys, weaned off of them shortly before birth and resumed just after Emrys was born. The panic attacks came back much later this time but Jamie still experienced them and is grateful for the treatment she’s found. Regardless of your shape or size, Jamie echoes the sentiment that body positivity needs to be for everyone. She’s had her own struggles and witnessed so many other women enter motherhood and their postpartum period with concerns about changes that are very normal but still startling. She hopes to see this conversation continue to change. #4thtrimesterbodiesproject #fourthtrimesterbodiesproject #4thtrimester #fourthtrimester #postpartum #breastfeeding #childbirth #bodypositivity #stopcensoringmotherhood #motherhood #bodypositive #4thtrimester #4thtribodies #pregnancy #everybodyisbeautiful #feminism #feminist #selflove #bodylove #fourthtribodies #4thtrichicago #postpartumanxiety #homebirth

A post shared by 4th Trimester Bodies Project (@4thtribodies) on

 

Seriously, let’s talk about how awe-inspiring the female human body is for a minute. Think about it. Once a woman gets pregnant, her body goes through tremendous change — every single part of her, from the obvious aesthetics on the outside all the way down to the cellular level. At no other time during a woman’s life will she actually grow — physically grow — an organ (the placenta) specifically for a set amount of time in her life (pregnancy) that, once her pregnancy is over, her body will eject. That, in and of itself, is mind-boggling to think about. An organ! And her body knows when it’s no longer needed and oof! out it goes!

And besides this organ-growing business, there’s the also-obvious aspect that the female human body cultivates what eventually becomes a living, breathing, growing being, beginning as merely a fertilized zygote and  culminating in a squishy, wrinkly neonate (only after the incredible process that is birth, which is an amazing process by itself), a brand-new baby that smells so sweet, looks so darling, and seems to do nothing but eat, sleep, and poop and is perfect in every way imaginable.

[Here, I’d post a picture of Spike’s placenta that I insisted on my husband taking after I gave birth, but I’m guessing you probably don’t want to see it. It’s AMAZING though. Seriously. So cool. Yay biology!]

Women’s bodies endure this this enormous and transformational, downright profoundly life-altering process for a good 10 months — 40 weeks, nearly an entire year — with the excellent takeaway being lifelong membership into Club Mom. Those 10 months can and I’d imagine, often do, change females’ bodies forever, and the changes themselves can change with subsequent births. It’s amazing. I’m repeating myself, but seriously. It’s all so amazing to me.

Why then, if we know that our bodies go through this tremendous change that take the better part of an entire YEAR, is there such a push to so quickly “get our pre-baby bodies” back?

I mean, seriously now  — why do people buy into this notion that women need to look how we did pre-pregnant nearly immediately post-delivery?

Are we really that oblivious, and our short-term memories that shitty, that we forget exactly how much change our bodies just endured for nearly a year?

Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but to think or even hope that our bodies can “return” to the same way they were pre-pregnancy so quickly after birth — assuming they do at all — is delusional, and on the side of the people/organizations/companies who make us think that this is rational, completely manipulative and predatory.

A cursory search online will lead you to a flurry of products that offer beleaguered moms the “easy” and “effortless” opportunity to get their pre-mom bodies back. The options are endless here, gang. You could use or ingest anything from bodywraps, lotions, creams, “detoxes” or “cleanses” (and we all know how I feel about these… gag me), magic foods, hell, there’s probably even a special song-and-dance routine out there that someone is touting as the magic elixir that’ll promise moms their original bodies back.

What. bullshit.

Imagine how this feels if you’ve recently become a mom for the first time (or the 8th time, whatever), and you’ve got the fun circus that is maternal hormones pumping through your body at full-tilt, and you see products and advertisements espousing how much better you’d look and feel or how much higher your self-worth would be if you merely looked how you did pre-pregnancy.

Here’s the thing, though, the important thing that I’m taking it upon myself, by way of my little corner of the internet here, to remind you: you just had a baby.

Without exaggeration, you literally grew and birthed progeny (as well as the accompanying organ necessary for said progeny).

And, better yet, if you’re breastfeeding, your body is literally sustaining the life of your child.

In other words, not only did your body grow and expel another being, now your body is still working, even harder perhaps, to ensure that your little one lives and thrives.

Yet somehow — growing and birthing and sustaining life — that’s not, you’re not, good enough.

What the hell.

Cut yourself some slack when you’re postpartum if (read: when) you don’t look how you did before. Give yourself a freakin’ break, moms.

I want to use my MA skills here for a second and examine the shoddy rhetoric implicit and explicit to claims and promises of “returning to your pre-pregnant body.” When you say that you’re going to return to your pre-pregnant body, that implies that it’s possible in the first place, that somehow, you can make your body go backwards in time to mirror how it looked before — before the growing-of-a-human-and-organ and before the sustaining-of-a-child business that I talked about earlier.

It ain’t gonna happen, kids. It can’t.

To say that you can “return to your pre-pregnant body” implies that your body can be how it was before you were pregnant — and that’s simply just not true. Once you’ve had a baby, you’ve had a baby. There’s no other way around it, no halfsies or kinda-sortas. For some women, myself included, you might have visual “scars” from your pregnancy or breastfeeding years. Some women own their scars, calling their stretch marks their “tiger stripes,” for example, and others hide them, maybe out of shame or resentment or embarrassment that their once-taut midsection or perfect ass or whatever no longer looks or feels the way it once did.

It’s really a matter of personal choice and preference, but I think some women’s inability to own their postpartum bodies is due to these bullshit products/companies/organizations out there (and their corresponding advertising) that make my fellow mothers feel like their postpartum bodies are somehow “less than” or otherwise not good enough, at least compared to how their bodies were pre-pregnancy.

Again: I call bullshit.

This soapbox is as much for me as it is for any reader who might stumble across this entry. Being two months postpartum now (and nearly four and a half years since my first daughter’s birth), I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t been periodically frustrated that I’m not at my exact weight as I was pre-pregnant with Spike or that I’m annoyed that my pants don’t fit me as perfectly yet as they did before — and who knows, maybe I’ll never get back to my pre-Spike weight or my pre-Spike pant-fitting-perfection. Whatever. I’ve implored my husband to correct me if I start body-shaming myself, even casually, because I don’t want that shitty behaviour and language to rub off onto my girls, and in particular, my incredibly impressionable four year-old.

Just because you might not look exactly like you did before you had your child doesn’t mean that you’re somehow less worthy of a person, less beautiful, or in general, less of anything. It’s aesthetics, and we all know that health can and often does look very different from person to person.

Allow me to remind you, again, that you grew, birthed, and if applicable, are still sustaining human life.

Cut yourself some slack.

If anything, celebrate that amazing body of yours because it’s obviously strong as fuck, and while I don’t think that “strong is the new sexy” (ugh, that should be another post entirely), I absolutely believe that “strong is the new strong” and is damn worthy of celebrating.

from a Sierra summit (over 2,400' of climbing in an ~11 mile run) a couple weekends ago. I could easily admit that I think my ass still looks bigger than usual or pinpoint exactly where I'm carrying the leftover pregnancy weight, but no fucks can be given for those menial matters, my friends. I'm no special snowflake or anything, but that body there grew and birthed and sustained two kids over the past 4.5 years and runs a shit ton of miles. Strength FTW, amigos
from a Sierra summit (over 2,400′ of climbing in an ~11 mile run) a couple weekends ago at 7 weeks postpartum. I could easily bemoan that my ass is bigger than usual and pinpoint exactly where I’m carrying the leftover pregnancy weight, but no fucks can be given for those menial matters, my friends. I’m no special snowflake or anything, but that body there grew and birthed and sustained two kids over the past 4.5 years and runs a shit ton of miles. Those matters — **not** the fact that I still can’t wear some of my pants  — are far more significant to me. Strength FTW, amigos [PC: S]

Besides, going on a limb here, but I’m guessing that if someone asked you at the end of the day, was it worth it? — was it worth gaining X number of pounds or Y number of inches on your waist and butt or your breasts never looking the same again — or whatever — if it meant that you’d get to experience the gift that is motherhood, you’d resoundingly say yes, and some, and even consider doing it all again.

There is definitely an importance and a value to practicing self-love postpartum, which includes the obvious stuff that we all know full well by now, like eating well and exercising, and how that looks to you will be different from how that looks to me. Therein lies the beauty of it. Just because you may not right now walk or run or whatever as fast (or well) as you did before you had your child doesn’t mean that you won’t ever return to that benchmark or, more importantly, it doesn’t make you any less of an athlete. I promise.

probably the most challenging run I've done since living here is just down the street from me. top: Nov '14, about a month or so before I got pregnant (and was in the thick of 50k training); bottom: last weekend, 8 weeks postpartum. Here again, I could talk about how much "better" my body was in the top pic, or how much faster I was then, or whatever, buuuuuuuuut no fucks can be given. That my postpartum (x2 now) body can throw down a double-digit run and climb nearly 3,000' through what is practically Everest, as far as I'm concerned, is way more valuable to me these days. [PC: S]
probably the most challenging run I’ve done since living here is just down the street from me (Monument Peak), and I like to stand at the top and pretend that it’s all my kingdom 🙂   top: Nov ’14, about a month or so before I got pregnant (and was in the thick of 50k training); bottom: last weekend, 8 weeks postpartum, just building volume and getting back into shape. Here again, I could talk about how much “better” my body was in the top pic, or how much faster I was then, or whatever, buuuuuuuuut no fucks can be given right now, friends. That my postpartum (x2 now) body can throw down a double-digit run and climb nearly 3,000′ through/over what is practically Everest, as far as I’m concerned, is way more valuable to me these days. [PC: S]

I’ll step off this soapbox for now. With the chaos that is the postpartum period, and especially the fourth trimester, we moms need not waste any of our extremely valuable and scarce mental real estate on stuff like this, stuff that somehow makes us question our worth as females, as mothers, or as humans. (And really, who the hell has time for stuff like this in the first place?) Body positivity is an acquired habit and one surely worth emulating as much as for ourselves as for our children.

Please, if no one else will say it to you, allow me to: your postpartum body is never, in any way, less than your bod pre-pregnancy. Promise. If anything, it is more than because it is your body — and yes, that emphasis is necessary — that did the work of growing and sustaining life. That, amigos, is serious strength and beauty. Own it.